God's Greatest Hits

#344 / Flood Time Capsule: 2012

On a chilly, rainy day in April 2012, the phone rang at the Bowen House. Asking if he might “speak to The 1937 Flood,” the caller identified himself as a representative of something called God’s Greatest Hits.

“Boy, do you ever have the wrong number!” Charlie Bowen exclaimed with a chuckle.

Honestly, he thought it was a gag. Some bored Flood buddy was just pulling his leg. Still, though, Charlie didn’t recognize the voice. Heck, he didn’t even recognize the accent.

No Joke

Sensing skepticism, the caller persisted. He was on the level, he insisted. He was a producer for a new Canadian music documentary television series created by Liam Romalis and Jason Charter of Riddle Films Inc. of Toronto and set to air on VisionTV.

Each episode, he said, would focus on one or more popular spiritual songs. It would include documentary and interview segments on the history of the songs, along with performances by various musicians.

Why Us?

The more the guy talked, the more convinced Bowen became, but then came the big question: “So, whadday’all want with us?”

Well, the producer said, he had seen a video on “YouTube” of The Flood recently performing “Wade in the Water,” the title tune of the band’s latest album:

That video had been shot the previous August at Live at Trackside Studios in Huntington during a marathon session with Bud Carroll which resulted in the album.

“We like what we see,” the show’s producer said. “We’d like to include a portion of it in our episode about how that song was written.”

For Real

“So, it’s real,” a still-astounded Charlie told his cousin Kathy in an email later than day.

The five-episode God's Greatest Hits series premiered May 11, 2012, and explored the stories behind some of the world's most famous religious numbers, songs such as “Amazing Grace,” Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus, “Ava Maria,” “Abide with Me” and more.

“The Flood," Charlie continued in his email, "is set to appear on the same episode as The Fisk Jubilee Singers and Sweet Honey in the Rock, and we're pretty excited. ‘Hallelujah damn!’ as Dave Peyton says!”

The show’s “Wade in the Water” episode, the fourth in the series, aired June 1, 2012.

God’s Gold

Over the next year, The Flood got a lot of mileage out of its God’s Greatest Hits cred; it was part of the patter whenever the band hit the stage to promote its new Wade in the Water album. Here’s Riddle Film's promo for the series, followed by The Flood’s big 90 seconds of Canadian glory:

God’s Greatest Hits went on to be a Canadian Screen Award nominee for Best Music Program or Series at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards in 2014 and again at the 3rd Canadian Screen Awards in 2015. Today the series is still available on Amazon, both streaming and as a DVD.

More Gospel Hours

As reported earlier, The Flood has had a complicated relationship with all things church-ish.

The band does occasionally play in churches, temples and synagogues, though we sometimes do seem to forgot where we are.

We still talk about, for instance, the time we rather infamously asked the parishioners who invited us to perform in their church basement if they happened to have “a bar stool” for our fiddler to perch on. (They, incidentally, rather infamously did have one and, with a wink, demurely brought it out…)

The Flood’s eclectic repertoire includes a respectable set of religious tunes, as you can hear in the “Gospel Hour” show, which is among the “Special Blends” playlists in our free Radio Floodango music streaming service.

Mid-set you’ll hear “Wade in the Water,” the tune that a dozen years ago brought us all that sweet Canadian love.